The Last Revelation IV: Merit
by Heidi Ahlmen
Summary: Getting ready for her next adventure, a Christmas trip to Egypt at the turn of the new Millennium, Lara hears news about an old acquaintance.
1. Chapter 1

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part IV: Merit by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Charles De Gaulle Airport  
  
Paris, France November 27th 1999  
  
Lara Croft entered the plane, and wandered between the seats towards the cockpit. Observing the seat numbers, she moved forward, clutching lightly onto her briefcase and backpack, unstrapped and carried in her hand. She peeked out of the window and saw the familiar sight of bags being transported into the plane.  
  
She returned her mind to the seat numbers again. 27, next to the aisle. As promised. Someone was already sitting on the neighbouring seat, head buried in a magazine.  
  
Lara glanced at the overhead compartment and decided to keep her belongings under the seat or in her lap as usual. In case of emergency she could. Lara snapped out of her thoughts and silenced the tiny voice inside her head giving the usual prep talk of plane security. She sat down and took a politely quick look at her fellow passenger. A woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a knee-length skirt and matching shirt.  
  
She was reading Archaeology Magazine.  
  
Lara had a sudden epiphany.  
  
"Merit?"  
  
The woman raised her gaze from the magazine. A smile lit on her face.  
  
"Lara!"  
  
They shared a warm hug and Merit Hawkes put down her magazine. She had long been included on Lara's short and picky list of closer friends. As the head of the South America department of the British Museum she was also often the person who got to send Lara Croft to places that would have meant certain death for library-oriented archaeologists.  
  
"So," Merit asked, noticing a stitched wound on Lara's throat. "What's the occasion? One doesn't often see Lara Croft boarding a plane in Paris."  
  
"Just a minor hunt. Nothing big." Lara replied, placing her briefcase on the floor.  
  
"Nice touch with the briefcase," Merit joked, "You almost look like an ordinary person."  
  
"Oh, ouch," Lara replied, smirking.  
  
"So, what have you uncovered this time, my dear? I heard something about you and Nessie?"  
  
"Nessie?" Lara was puzzled.  
  
"Loch Ness?" Merit reminded dryly.  
  
"Oh. Umm. well."  
  
"Bigfoot two years ago. Nessie this year. What's on in 2000 - Puff The Magic Dragon?"  
  
"Hardly, Merit. The thing with Nessie was just a. brief encounter."  
  
"Well, what's the big secret then? What is it?"  
  
"Real, to begin with. I won't go into details. I'm not going to be the one they're going to hang for killing the tourism."  
  
Merit grabbed Lara's much-suffered backpack from her lap. "Let's see."  
  
She dug out a large object wrapped in a piece of plastic. "Is this what I think it is?" she asked, after unwrapping the artifact. It was carved of strange, blue stone - carved into the shape of a hand.  
  
"The Hand Of Rathmore," Lara replied, more than a hint of pride in her tone.  
  
"Should've guessed," Merit replied, with a strange look.  
  
"How are you, by the way?" Lara asked and noticed the 'fasten seatbelts' sign blinking. Killing a hint of nervousness, she concentrated on the conversation.  
  
Merit put the artifact back and clicked on her seatbelt. "All the better. If you don't mind me asking, where did that come from?" Merit pointed at Lara's throat.  
  
She shrugged. "You know the drill. Mutant birds. Guards. Bullets. I stitched it myself. Hopefully it won't make a scar."  
  
She never ceased to amaze Merit.  
  
The plane took off. To Lara's annoyance she noticed Merit looking at her carefully.  
  
"Still sitting next to the aisle," she commented.  
  
Lara nodded silently. It was more of a habit. It was a long time since Tibet. It was a long time since everything. But if you started thinking about it, only heartache would follow. Or maybe not heartache. Just a dull awareness of life's imperfections  
  
Half an hour later, Lara and Merit decided on a cup of tea. They had not said a word since takeoff, both obviously tired. The smell of fresh green tea woke Lara from her silent slumber of thoughts.  
  
"You still a bachelorette?" Lara asked, sipping her tea and refusing a cookie the steward was offering.  
  
"More or less." Merit replied, digging her purse.  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lara asked. Merit replied by passing her a photograph.  
  
"That's Samuel. First guy I've met whose sense wasn't damaged in the delivery. Talks about marriage a lot."  
  
Lara laughed. Merit's sense of humor came very close to Lara's aunt's. Sister of her mother, she lived by her paintings on Isle of Wight. Lara made a mental note to call her aunt sometimes in the near future. Near future was all she could promise herself. No-one knew how soon she was leaving home again. Miraculously, two days home seemed to charge her batteries.  
  
"I take it no-one in particular is present in your life?" Merit asked carefully.  
  
"One of these days I'm afraid I have to start watching "Babes In The Wood" in learning purpose."  
  
"You'll meet someone." Merit assured small-talkishly.  
  
"Hardly with my current schedule."  
  
"Some want career, others a family. Every woman has one and wants the other."  
  
"And you're getting both," Lara replied, somehow less bitterly than she would have thought.  
  
Merit ignored her, concentrating on her tea. Lara put away her cup and just sat, tapping her knees with her fingers. After a few minutes she turned to Merit.  
  
"How's Jean?" she asked carefully.  
  
Merit broke to a laugh. "Is that what you've been wanting to ask so badly I can read it in your face?"  
  
"No. The thought just crossed my mind," Lara replied sternly.  
  
"If I didn't know better, listening to the rumours still around at the museum, I'd think you two were an item."  
  
Lara didn't smile back at Merit.  
  
"If I wanted my private life and relationships to be public property, I'd have become a model. Not an archaeologist. I can't believe they're still talking."  
  
"You kidding, woman? They're still congratulating Jean for melting the ice maiden," Merit complained, with the hint of humor in her voice.  
  
"They know nothing about anything," Lara said quietly, unsure why Merit was telling her all this.  
  
"What's to know about?" Merit asked.  
  
"Nothing! Absolutely plain nothing. I haven't seen him for seven years. I haven't talked to him on the phone since the embalming fluid thing."  
  
Merit took a strange look at her. Had it been Lara? No-one still knew. It was like the gost of Anne Boleyn in the Tower - no-one knew if it existed, yet everyone knew something was up there.  
  
A year ago a vial of embalming fluid from an Egyptian tomb - a priceless item - had been stolen from the Natural History Museum. Vanished without a trace. Two guards had been killed and an eyewitness played jokes about someone dressed as Batman.  
  
Nah. Lara stole things, but not from museums. Not for her own reasons - only for the best of society.  
  
Merit shivered at the realization that it could have been Lara. If she ever crossed the line to the wrong side, she would be a thief no-one could catch.  
  
Still. She knew Lara beyond that.  
  
"Let me think. Last time I talked to him was two weeks ago in Brussels. He gave a talk in a conference. He's currently in Alexandria, digging out something in the Catacombs."  
  
Lara became pensive. "Funny you should mention." she mused.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"My next trip will be to Egypt next month. Maybe I'll go visit."  
  
"Egypt? I have to, again, speak for the museum. You know the drill, as you always say."  
  
Lara sighed, only half pleased of the arrangements. "Trinkets for me, trinkets for the museum, and you make sure I won't be checked at the customs?"  
  
"You got it. That much imperialism is useful - archaeological treasures are safer here."  
  
"You know I still disagree. They belong to their home countries."  
  
"That's the way it goes these days. We can't import anything freely."  
  
"So your little starlet Lara Croft smuggles stuff for you. Bloody genius."  
  
"We couldn't possibly thank you enough for contributing so much to our South America collection."  
  
Lara snorted. "You make me sound like your regular grave robber."  
  
Merit laughed. "That's not quite true." She paused and then continued. "Lara, Lara. Still the pure idealist. Thinks artifacts are better in secret chambers with triggered traps than in London where everyone can come and see them."  
  
Lara grinned. "You know me. When the world runs out of tombs, I'm outta business." Talking mainly to herself, she said; "I have to go and see Jean."  
  
"I'm sure he'd like that," Merit said, something hidden behind her words.  
  
"Why so sure?" Lara asked, not sure what to say. Merit sounded so weird.  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	2. Chapter 2

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part IV: Merit by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 2  
  
"Seriously Lara, what's to know about you and Jean?"  
  
Lara didn't say anything.  
  
"I only know you had a little affair going on years and years ago. Nothing big. Yet every time I see you, you seem more concerned of his well-being than mine."  
  
"He's a friend," Lara replied repugnantly. "He's a friend - maybe we were something years back but he ruined it. Typical."  
  
"Ruined it?" Merit replied.  
  
Lara was grateful for the fact that her tone showed no curiosity. It wasn't like she was Pamela Anderson or someone similar, yet her personal life was under focus everywhere. The star of the British Museum - she felt like a mascot. 'We have Lara Croft, therefore we are wonderful and likeable.' The old feeling of wanting to climb into a dusty closet and stay there returned, amusing Lara slightly.  
  
"Not many people know that I declined his offer for marriage. He did not win me over. He did not dump me. I did not dump him. We were kids and he was tactless." Lara explained nonchalantly.  
  
"That's a pity," Merit replied. Ten years older than Lara, she had acted as her teacher, friend and counsellor over the years of the acquaintance. Lara usually came to her with these things.  
  
Although not very recently.  
  
"I've grown up since that," Lara replied, and Merit started. Lara had not been talking of the things she had been thinking, yet she answered her unspoken question.  
  
"You know," Merit said. "I don't know whether I should tell you, but. He speaks of you an awful lot."  
  
Lara looked at her, questioning.  
  
"I'm starting to feel like a messenger here. When I see him it's the same thing - it's like you two are avoiding each other."  
  
"He's always somewhere studying some libr."  
  
"Never underestimate him. He's not a librarian, he's an archaeologist just like you. He may not skulk through caves for a living or put his life on the line, but in the matter of new discoveries, I don't think he's much behind you. He's brilliant. So are you, but.. in a different way. He is one of the people who do your basework for you. You get offered tombs and temples on silver plates after they've shared painstaking hours of trying to find them."  
  
"Quit lecturing, Merit. I don't deserve it." Lara replied, extremely annoyed. "And saying I get tombs and temples on silver plates - that's ridiculous. I do my own research. Mostly."  
  
"Pardon me." Merit said, slightly annoyed herself.  
  
"Please do continue," Lara said disarmingly.  
  
"What I was saying is that he's complaining that he has no-one to talk to. You're complaining that you have no-one to talk too."  
  
"If this is wrapping up a 'match made in heaven' -speech, please, I beg you to spare me." Lara said, her voice full of sarcasm.  
  
"This isn't," Merit promised. "I'm just suggesting that you visit him. If I were you I would."  
  
"We're not an item," Lara replied to no-one in particular. "Don't play Cupid. I can't believe this. This is absolutely ridiculous."  
  
"Always above everything else. Come down here Croft, and call Jean."  
  
She didn't. The thought crossed her mind a dozen times, but standing literally on the brink of a new venture into the unknown history of Egypt, Lara hardly had the time to sit down or sleep. Countless fights with the airlines and daytrips to London to clean and modify her collection of required weaponry. As other women treated themselves with a new bottle of perfume, Lara enjoyed the individualistic feeling following the realization of the fact that she had spoiled herself by investing in a brand new crossbow.  
  
Five days after returning home from France, she boarded a KLM flight to Cairo.  
  
"Miss Lara Croft, please." She walked up to the counter and banged her backpack on it. Dressed in a long linen skirt and a matching blazer, she looked like any ordinary, but wealthy tourist wishing to smell the air around Cairo and upper Egypt for the weekend.  
  
"Thank you. Let me see. Here, suite number ten. Seventh floor, the porter will show you."  
  
"Thank you." Lara flashed a smile and turned to spot a similar smile on the porter's face. He was a young Arab, obviously smelling a big tip. Lara followed him to the elevator, and replied to his ever-present smile - lacking some teeth - with an occasional mildly accepting look. He carried Lara's bags to her room, and Lara tipped him generously, as expected.  
  
Left alone in the suite, she cursed her habits silently. She always reserved a suite despite the fact that she hardly ever spent more than one night at a hotel during her trips. Nevertheless, a quality shower and a quality bed were sometimes all she needed.  
  
But not tonight. Glancing at her watch, it told her she had five hours to prepare herself for the desert.  
  
Without bothering to turn on the lights, Lara opened her suitcase, threw a pile of clothes on the bed and started changing clothes. Pondering the circumstances in her destination she decided on a black shirt. Shorts were a regular choice, the usual double-stitched camping-model shorts. She had brought her highest-reaching boots - they would prevent sandburns inside the shoes.  
  
Having a sudden urge of wanting to do something differently, she unbraided her hair and tied it up to a high ponytail. She grinned at her own sight in the bathroom mirror. She looked nothing but perky - an adjective she most detested. 'What do you say, I look like a hippie,' she thought, and left her hair that way.  
  
She switched on the lights.  
  
Something was placed on her bed. A postcard. A simple postcard - one of those annoying landscape postcards that everyone's relatives send from places like Paris or the Canary Islands saying "weather's great, we all have severe cases of stomach flu, but we love the sun".  
  
Lara picked it up, trying not to step on her still-open shoelaces dragging after her as she walked.  
  
"Miss Lara Croft, Nile Hilton, Cairo.  
  
If you have any spare time (which you never do, I know I know) please come around. One day you'll save the world with that plait of yours.  
  
Jean"  
  
Smiling to herself in a manner that disturbed her with its uncontrollability, she wondered what Jean meant with the last phrase.  
  
She walked to the bathroom, having a sudden epiphany.  
  
She felt like Sampson. Maybe it was her hair that kept her lucky.  
  
'I make my own luck. Not the time to fall in for superstition. You are being silly, woman,' she mused, and switched on the mirror light.  
  
'I do look like a hippie.'  
  
She started undoing the ponytail and then started braiding her hair in her usual manner.  
  
'Sure, I can make my own luck but fate isn't something one should mess with.'  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	3. Chapter 3

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part IV: Merit by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 3  
  
Hours later, she had done her shopping in Khan-El-Khalil; a thick gallabia that would keep off the sand and coldness of the night, and a scarf to wear on her face.  
  
From the centre of Cairo she took a taxi to Giza. She was to meet her guide there - an excellent place at that - she still loved the pyramids, despite the fact that she had seen them countless times. Though she had never been inside. Stories telling of uncovered secrets underneath the massive buildings were often told to tourists. Lara wasn't sure whether to believe or not. She had seen so many unrecovered or buried sites in her career that folklore wasn't something she dismissed happily anymore as a source of information.  
  
They arrived in Giza after a good fifteen minute ride. Suffice to say, there was almost no traffic so late in the evening. Lara paid the driver, got off, and started walking to the pyramids. The sun had set hours earlier, giving Cairo's mosque minarets a golden frosting and making the Nile a spectacular sight. Lara never had enough time to spend in the city. She had visited Egypt on numerous occasions, yet she'd never seen the inside of the dark walls of Saladdin's Citadel, visited the Temple of Karnak or the ruins underneath Alexandria that she thought to be spectacular.  
  
On the other hand, imagining herself in a tourist bus, listening to the guide spelling Menkaure's name wrong and fussing over people to get into the Sphinx area, she again vowed never to become a tourist.  
  
'Going to Egypt to see the pyramids, eating in McDonalds afterwards and enjoying beach life in Hurghada is no trip to Egypt,' she thought bitterly, and sat down on a slanted block a mile away from Khufu's Queen's Pyramid. On the edge of the desert, only a short walk from her sitting place, her guide to the desert was waiting.  
  
Only the bedouins can take a hike on the desert in daytime. The physics of a British woman, Lara Croft or otherwise, cannot stand the heat or intenseness or the dry wind of the Sahara. Lara knew this, that's why she rode to her destination in the solace of the night.  
  
The temperature was under zero, but her white gallabia kept her warm. Exchanging an occasional word with her guide, who spoke suspiciously good English, she enjoyed the nighttime desert.  
  
The stars shone over Egypt. The ancient land of ancient people and pharaohs was melted by the moonlight into a serene, brown mesh of sand and wind. Scorpions crept over dunes, their passage almost as amusing as that of crabs, creeping and crawling, that being the only meaning of their mere existence.  
  
Remembering the movie Lawrence of Arabia, Lara patted her camel. Camel- riding was new to her - she had naturally learned to ride horses (an unquestioned advantage of being the daughter of a Lord who liked to go fox- hunting), but camels she had never tried.  
  
She felt like she was swinging. Up a dune, down a dune. An observant, but surprisingly bright-looking camel head made its long journey in front of her, making an occasional growl in the starlight. Lara fixed her position, trying to sit more upwards like her guide seemed to do. It helped. She didn't feel like falling during the curves anymore. Pushing the worries on how to get off a camel aside, she pressed her heel on the animal's side and it quickened its pace.  
  
Up a dune. Down a dune. Until all the dunes look the same. Until all the occasional trees and bushes look the same. Until you'd marry your guide for a promise that he would get you out of there later on.  
  
The desert can be beautiful, but it is deadly to those who do not know their way out. And the Sahara is a terrible place to get lost in.  
  
A sandstorm arrived an hour before dawn. Sand nearly choking her and the wind almost knocking Lara off her camel, she looked at her guide and wondered how on earth one possibly got used to it. The cold desert at night was alright, but the cauldron of sand and hot wind was almost too much to bear for more than an hour.  
  
Lara had looked behind her once and noticed that the footsteps of her camel were filled with sand almost instantly after the camel had stepped off. They were no use if anyone wanted to find back to civilization.  
  
They reached their destination at dawn. It was a lonely-looking place; just a wide pile of large boulders in the middle of nowhere. Some small crevices housed scorpions or beetles.  
  
Behind a large boulder they dismounted their camels and left them behind the boulder - it would spare them from the wind. Scratching her camel's ear, Lara dug out her backpack from the covers on the camel's back, and strapped her shotgun into a double-secured strap in her back. Waving at her guide to wait for her, she reached over the camel to dig out her holster belt from its back. The camel shifted slightly.  
  
"That's a boy," Lara babbled to the camel named Maleesh while clicking on her belt buckle. The animal was obviously so fed up with gleeful tourist kids riding him near the pyramids that a nightly excursion to the desert was a treat.  
  
Lara left the camel and followed his guide, letting the hem of her gallabie fall down to her ankles. The sandstorm still kept raging.  
  
Walking to her guide, she spotted something on the ground. A cat statuette's head. It had some kind of jewels for eyes, as it seemed to blink at Lara. She kneeled to pick it up - if it wasn't a switch of some sorts, then at least the museum would be happy with such a beautiful statue. In the meanwhile she noticed her guide waving at her. Wondering why he was in such a hurry, Lara turned her gaze back to the statue, her hand reaching for it. As she turned her head she noticed the huge scorpion.  
  
An inch away from her outstretched hand.  
  
Its sting ready to strike.  
  
Lara gasped, and quickly pulled her hand back, falling backwards to the sand.  
  
Definitely not stopping to determine whether it was a member of a poisonous species she started getting up. and noticed at least a hundred scorpions squirming out of a nearby crevice in the rock. Hurrying to get up, she started running in the sand.  
  
Anyone who ever tried running in sand can tell that if one wanted perfect legs, it was the only way to get them. It's like running in a barrel of syrup.  
  
Adrenaline rushing in her veins, Lara fought her way to her guide. Luckily, the scorpions were left behind.  
  
Panting, Lara leaned on her knees, and looked at what the guide was pointing.  
  
A round handle of some kind in a rock. Curiosity getting the best of Lara Croft, she placed her gloved hand on the handle. What bad could come from pulling it - as the rock it was attached to seemed itself to be attached to nothing. Just a rock.  
  
She pulled it.  
  
Noting happened. The wind roared.  
  
But after some seconds a minor earthquake shook the ground. Lara and her guide looked at each other, but before either had the time to shrug, the ground opened.  
  
A large, round opening appeared under their feet and Lara let out a bloodcurdling scream as she fell.  
  
Being taken by surprise is still being taken by surprise, whether you're Lara Croft or not.  
  
And they fell. Lara quieted her panic as the rushing tunnel of sand tried to rip wounds into her feet and pooled her shorts with sand. Her guide was yelling uncontrollably in Arabic and their quick descent to the ground continued.  
  
What Lara worried about most were the large chunks of rock following. She didn't want to be hit by one of them. She didn't want to be hit by anything from behind, no matter whether it was her guide or a rock.  
  
Then, suddenly, the steep tunnel ended. Lara felt the tunnel bottom disappear from under her, and she fell back to the cold ground. The fall knocked all breath from her lungs.  
  
She got up some minutes later, after a good silent checkup for broken bones. She had definitely not expected to receive a blow of that kind. Her head hurt - that was for sure - but she didn't care. She was where she was supposed to be.  
  
Pulling off the gallabia and letting it fall to the ground, Lara studied her surroundings. Her guide had lit some torches - obviously while waiting for her to get up. Politeness or the question "are you alright" obviously did not belong to his vocabulary. Not that Lara cared. A woman of independence, she'd have shot anyone for fussing over her more than necessary.  
  
Concentrating on the task at hand, Lara clicked open her holsters' press- studs and dug out her pair of pistols.  
  
The Tomb of Seth. She was ready.  
  
End of part IV/V  
  
And the story continues. The last scene of "Merit" can be watched as an FMV. If you don't know which one, get either a life or a copy of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation ;=)  
  
I had to slightly modify some facts to fit the story. The Tomb of Seth, in the game, is located near the Valley of The Kings, which is definitely not within a camel walk from Cairo.  
  
After finishing 'Merit', I realized two things. Firstly, I had finally come to my destination in the means of telling the story behind the scene in Jean's house late in Alexandria late in the evening. Whether Lara shared that bottle of wine with Jean is beyond me ;-)  
  
All feedback to: siirma6@surfeu.fi  
  
~For additional information about the series and the creative process, there's an article published about the series at "Lara Croft's Tales Of Beauty And Power". You can find it in the section "Author's Notes". I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far.  
  
Heidi 


End file.
